101devworx> | May 2013 | www.devworx.in

Microsoft announces Azure Infrastructure Services

*side panel

Microsoft has announced the public release of its

Windows Azure Infrastruc-ture Services to compete with Amazon Web Services. The new service which has been in lim-ited preview since 2012 is now available with a simultaneous price drop ranging from 21 to 33 per cent. The new Infrastructure as a Service offering provides a virtualised Windows and Linux environment on the Azure plat-form. Bill Hilf, General Manager from Windows Azure Team

said in a blog post, “We’ll never tell you that a Microsoft app inside your virtual machine is ‘up the stack’ and not support it—we’ll support it and make sure you’re successful. And we’ll back it with monthly SLAs that are among the industry’s highest.” Hilf also quoted some feedback and described anec-dotes from customers such as Digital Air Strike and Telenor. He was quoted saying that Tel-enor reduced its setup time for Sharepoint from 3 months to

2 weeks, saving time with a 70 per cent cost reduction on their test environment. Additonally, Azure is reported to have more than 2,00,000 customers who use a hybrid approach to deploy their applications in the cloud.

Among the applications that have just made it to the list of instances that are pre-validated by Microsoft are SQL Server, SharePoint, Biz-Talk Server, and Dynamics NAV. Some new high memory instances have also been added for those cases which have to work on peak workloads.

All these goodies come with a guarantee that Microsoft will always match up to any price drop that Amazon AWS goes through in the future. This commmitment on behalf of Microsoft makes sure that it will be able to make a sizeable dent in Amazon’s market share.

Read the entire article at http://dvwx.in/Zvj3iU and share your comments.

*Facebook’s OpenGraph for mobile

>>The new set of announcements are aimed at providing a better experience for mobile app developers to integrate Facebook into their applications. Read:

http://dvwx.in/11i1ru6

*Intel launches HTML5 app dev platform

>>Intel released a new set of HTML5 tools at its Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The company says that this platform is inspired from, and resembles Appmobi’s HTML5 platform. Read:

http://dvwx.in/17BRo6x

RHEL and OpenJDK break Java benchmark speeds

>>Red Hat announced that OpenJDK 7 running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 broke all earlier records of Critical Java Operations per second performance metric on the SPECjbb2013 benchmark. This is expected to show the much-faster Java execution speeds with OpenJDK software on RHEL servers.

http://dvwx.in/12yy0XW

Planning Commision organises hackathon

>> In what is seen as an effort to improve its connect with the youth and aid in the awareness of the 12th Five year plan, the Planning Commision of the Government of India, in collaboration with the National Innovation Council organized a two-day hackathon on April 06-07, 2013 at more than 10 venues across India. The objective of these events was to develop applications with a social angle. For more information, go to:

http://dvwx.in/10IfZjo

Google kills spam apps

>>After announcing the new re-designed Play Store for Android, which is being rolled out to users around the world, reports of more than 60,000 spam apps being killed have surfaced. These are generally those which overlook the app store guidelines and terms, inviting its termination from the App Store.

http://dvwx.in/Zh82l8

*footer

Interview with Harish Pillay,

Global Community & Technology Architect,

Red HatFor complete interview:

devworx.in

For latest news, updates and features, join us on

Facebook at facebook.com/

devworx.in

> code / creativity / community >

*Amazon opens AppStore in India

>>Amazon has announced that its app store will be available in India and over 200 countries where developers will be able to sell apps locally and internationally. Read:

http://dvwx.in/XGSSbE

102 devworx> | May 2013 | www.devworx.in

Work and play with Nokia Asha>>Nokia’s Series 40 is the most widely used mobile platform. With the sheer number of established users on its side, it is a lucrative target for app developers > by Nash David

Nokia in association with Digit and Devworx con-ducted bootcamps across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to engage the developer community and increase awareness about the opportunities that lie in

developing applications for Nokia’s vast portfolio of smartphones. Over the course of a day, participants were able to interact with members of Nokia India’s Developer Experience team, including Sangeeta Bavi and Jeffrey Rufus from the Developer Experience team at Nokia India. In addition to this, there were engineers and mentors from Nokia who spoke on the SDKs and APIs by Nokia.

Introduction to S40The Nokia Asha Bootcamp sessions across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad in March this year focussed on enabling devel-

opers comprising students as well as professional developers to get a hold of the tools and opportunities that have been pro-vided by Nokia. Sangeeta shared insight on the growth of mobile devices, and focused on the adaption of Nokia Asha devices globally. Considering that India is an emerging market, it is no surprise that Asha smartphones are critically important to audi-ences due to strategic price point of available devices.

Business opportunitiesMonetisation and financial success were quick to gain the attention of participants. Statistics by Nokia, first-hand experi-ences of implementing best practices by Indian app develop-ment companies such as Jump Games (India’s premier mobile gaming and publishing firm and a part of Reliance Enter-

Gerard Rego, Director - Developer Experience, Nokia India shares tips with an enthusiastic audience during the multi city bootcamp

Sangeeta Bavi, Head - Developer Outreach, Nokia India highlights the advantages of developing apps for the Asha range of devices

103devworx> | May 2013 | www.devworx.in

Work and play with Nokia Asha

tainment) gave the audience an overall understanding of consumer behaviour and preferences. Jeffrey who heads the Nokia App Store at Nokia India shared tips on marketing your applications and understanding app adoption trends among consumers, that developers could successfully leverage for growth.

Near your cityWatch this space for more announcements regarding similar activities in your city.

To stay updated on news, events and conferences, visit us online. Go to www.devworx.in

Technical sessions by Nokia engineers...

Developers gaining valuable tips from Nokia’s speakers

Attendees spare a moment for a photo-opJump Games – a success story

...app demos by budding developers...

Attendees with their certificates of participation

...and tips on app monetisation

104 devworx> | May 2013 | www.devworx.in

Alfresco>>Alfresco is a free/libre enterprise content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Alfresco comes in three flavors: Alfresco Community Edition (free), Alfresco Enterprise and Alfresco Cloud (SaaS version of Alfresco).

http://dvwx.in/10B7ey7

Magnolia>>Business users will love Magnolia’s instant mobile sites, simplified page editing interface and document management integration via CMIS, an industry standard supported by Sharepoint, Documentum and others. Developers benefit from latest technologies and enhancements.

http://dvwx.in/ZJGEQ4

*join us!

Join the discussion on Facebook and stay updated on latest news and features. Scan the QR code using your smartphone, now!

>>Harish Pillay, Global Community and Technology Architect, Red Hat

>>We need freedom to change service providers>>

What is Red Hat’s role in PaaS?There have been attempts at PaaS (Platform as a Service), but none of them were truly open-source in nature. We felt the need to define this space. OpenShift is everything that goes into the middleware. As a developer you can develop your application in the language you choose using a whole range of frameworks.

What are some points to ponder over regarding the cloud?I believe there’s no point talking about moving to the cloud, if it is not clear how you would leave the cloud. So I think what’s more impor-tant is what the exit strategy would be from your current cloud service provider to another. That’s really the question to ask, else you’ll be stuck with the provider you opt for without a strategy in place when you need to change. We all need flexibility and freedom to change cloud service providers.

Is OpenShift modular in approach?There are two terms we use in OpenShift. We have something called a Gear and some-thing called a Cartridge. So yes, it is modular in the sense that everything is a gear. You can have a MySql Gear, a Postgre Gear. You could have different types of Gears to provide specific capabilities.

Is there is any significant product or company that has developed anything on OpenShift?There is a very popular online IDE called Cloud9 (c9.io). It is built using OpenShift and enables developers to develop apps that actually run on OpenShift which is very interesting.

*open source

Prefer 140 characters? Follow us: @devworx.

>>You’ve been following devworx every

month as you enjoy your favourite technology

magazine. With your support, devworx has been

on a steady rise, and is discovering its identity

with you – the reader – the developer. While on

one hand, it’s an extension of your most trusted

brand – Digit; on the other, it’s tailored for

application developers in India.

Whether you’re an app development

company based out of India, an application

developer, or simply an enthusiast – you are

nonetheless, a catalyst in India’s growth as a

software development powerhouse. Be it the

Large Hadron Collider at CERN, or the Curiosity

Explorer currently roving across Martian terrain,

Indian technologists and developers are a very

close part of cutting edge innovation across the

globe. We want to help you innovate!

devworx is an attempt to recognise

such stories in software innovation, early on!

Irrespective of where you stand in the scenario

illustrated, we invite you to be a part of us.

Whether you’re an established app development

company, a policy maker influencing the mobile

ecosystem, or an individual developer, there’s

a lot to share with the community. We eagerly

want to hear your story. Write to us today! Visit

www.devworx.in and go to the Contact us

and Careers pages for further information. You

can also email us at editor@devworx.in.